Ohio voter turnout soared to 74%, with a new record of 5.97 million ballots counted and eclipsing the old record even during a global pandemic.
“Nearly 6 million Ohio voters had their voices heard. That is more than we’ve ever seen in any previous election,” LaRose said.
The previous highest number of ballots cast was the 2008 election, during which 5.77 million Ohioans cast a ballot for a little under 70% turnout. In 2012, 5.63 million Ohio ballots were cast. In 2016, 5.61 million ballots were cast.
Turnout was even higher in some local counties. In Warren County, 81.85% of voters turned out.
There were 3.51 million absentee ballots cast and 99.7% of those ballots were accepted.
Nine days prior, all 88 bipartisan board of elections certified their results to LaRose’s office. The secretary of state office then compiles that information and makes sure everything is reported accurately.
LaRose said in a live broadcast of the signing of the official election results that it’s always a challenge to run a presidential election in Ohio.
“That work got even more difficult in March when we learned that we were going to be facing a very difficult scenario with the global pandemic,” LaRose said.
LaRose said they worked with county election officials and with public health experts on getting the right piece in place.
He said this included making sure they had enough poll workers, with 56,000 poll workers ready to open close to 4,000 polling locations.
“A great success for the people of Ohio and the work of many to make that happen,” LaRose.
He said this also included having the right health and safety protocols in place, working with health and election officials, such getting personal protective equipment to voting locations
A successful election took getting accurate voting information out to Ohioans, LaRose said. He said misinformation came from a variety of sources from domestic politicians, foreign adversaries, and Ohioans who he said were well intentioned but misinformed.
“We knew, unfortunately, that there was going to be a lot of false information circulating around.”
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